I'm fascinated to read about the hut next to Saddam's hole. It sounds an awful lot like my old bachelor pad down in the Mountain Park section of Lake Oswego, where all the yuppies went a-four-wheel-drivin' down to the Thriftway, circa 1990. My place was a basement apartment in a grim little complex, inhabited mostly by the castoffs of recently dissolved marriages (including me) -- so much so that my friends and I called it the Divorce Detention Camp. A borrowed card table, a sleeping bag on the floor, and one bare light bulb swinging. I'm no heir of Muhammad, but I can relate.

There was no spider hole, per se, but there was a tiny swimming pool where you could lie flat and hope you wouldn't be noticed. And if you wanted a dark, dirty, disgusting, smelly pit, there were numerous strip clubs within driving distance.

The inventory of goods found in Saddam's hovel (which I believe shares the name with a bar up on Sandy Boulevard) also sounds familiar. You've got your 7 Up, your Mars bars, a candy bar called "Bounty," hot dogs, a cake of Palmolive Naturals soap, a bottle of Dove moisturizing shampoo, a supply of moisturizing cream (you're living alone, you make do), a stick of "Lacoste deodorant pour homme," three pairs of white boxer shorts, and two white, sleeveless undershirts (XL and XXL) still in the plastic.

It's not clear whether the shirts were "muscle shirts" or tanks, but what is clear is what the wily old coot Hussein was up to. He was going to try both of the sizes on, maybe even wash one of them to see if it shrunk, and take the wrong-sized one back to the Tikrit Target for a refund.

For reading, the former dictator had a book on interpreting dreams, volumes of classical Arabic poetry entitled Discipline and Sin, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment. What, no Esquire?

The only things Hussein had with him that I didn't have down in Mountain Park were the guns and the money. Granted, I wish I'd had the money. But at least I had Al Menashe as my divorce lawyer, and believe me, he'd take Ramsey Clark to the freakin' cleaners.

Like Saddam, I also could have used a couple of doubles to make public appearances.

I wonder who'll live in that hut now. I know I should be taking this more seriously, but I keep hearing Fred from the B-52s in my head: Wearing next to nothin' 'cause it's hot as an oven! Funky little shack! Fun-ky lit-tle shack!

Bang bang! On the door, baby!